Sarah Welland has always had a passion for art and technology, which is why she decided to find a course that allowed her to combine the two. After deciding she wanted to pursue a different career path from her job in the canteen with the National Trust, Sarah plucked up the courage and took the plunge. Studying Pitman Training’s Web Developer Diploma would give her access to a career she could only have dreamt about before.
“I chose Pitman as my course provider because I had used them before. I knew I could trust the course and the people working there to deliver a great service,” explained Sarah. “When I started the Web Developer Diploma, I wanted to focus more on the web design skills than the actual web development. I could already use photoshop, but the idea of getting to grips with programmes like JavaScript really excited me. I just wanted to be able to say, ‘hey, I built my own portfolio’.”
Pitman’s Web Developer Diploma allows students to learn the coding languages required to be a front-end web developer and create dynamic websites. The study programme covers the primary and in-demand web development programming languages: HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This course is perfect for students with no experience in coding and can help them find roles as junior web developers.
“I really enjoyed the course and especially liked learning the CSS style sheet language because it gave me the artistic licence to plan out pages and choose my own images. Altogether, the course was fun because you’re putting together text and coding and, once you press a button, it all combines. It was nice to see my finished work. At the beginning, I wasn’t sure what would result from my coding but then I would see everything responding to the code I’d inputted – it was brilliant!
“The course was great and the skills I learnt are so important nowadays. One of the reasons I chose this course was that it gave me the choice to study entirely from home. Because the course was online, I was able to complete it at my own pace and I managed to go over everything quite quickly. I found JavaScript most challenging, but the course was structured well which meant I could go over everything bit by bit. I also had the option to go back when I didn’t quite understand things which I found really useful.”
As well as Pitman’s flexibility on where you choose to work through your course, or how fast you wish to complete it, students also receive help from a subject expert tutor. The subject expert tutor’s job is to provide you with extra help if you need it. It doesn’t matter if you choose to learn inside the centre or from the comfort of your home, your subject expert tutor will be on hand to help you whenever you need it.
“I did enjoy having access to a subject expert tutor. Whenever I contacted them, the feedback they gave me on my work was great. It was also handy to know that I had someone there whenever I needed them. The tutors were able to help suggest better ways to do things and helped me to talk my ideas out so I could understand them more. The best thing they taught me was to comment my code, this way, when I read it back, I had notes reminding me what everything does.
“I have more confidence now than when I first started the course and I’ve been searching for new roles, but I still feel I have a bit more to learn. There are other programming languages I still need to get to grips with. It’s nice knowing that I can make a website and understand what different coding languages mean. Taking the first step was scary but Pitman has helped me realise that I can do anything I set my mind to.
“My advice for people looking to take a Web Developer Diploma would be to put the skills you learn on the course to use. Pitman gives you the basic skills and shows you how to use them, but by putting these skills into practice you’ll understand how everything works better. Web designing is an in-demand skills right now, and even if you don’t want to take it forward as a career, it will help you in loads of different ways. It explains how everything from the internet, the cloud, different programming languages and computers work. You can even use it to make your own little games!”
At Pitman, we use the highest-quality technology to provide our students with the education they deserve. If you’re interested in developing yourself personally or professionally in a supportive and flexible learning environment, get in contact with your local training centre: www.pitmantraining.ie
